US taxpayers have funded UNRWA billions of dollars amid calls for its scrapping: ‘horror show’

Over the last 15 years, U.S. taxpayers have given an astonishing amount of money to UNRWA, a United Nations refugee agency for Palestinians that critics have long said promoted an anti-Israel agenda in the Middle East and recently came under scrutiny for its alleged ties to Hamas.

From 2009 to 2024, a little under $4 billion in taxpayer dollars was given to the humanitarian relief organization, according to a Fox News Digital review.

During former President Obama’s tenure in the White House, from 2009 to 2016, the U.S. gave roughly $2.43 billion to UNRWA.

Following the Obama presidency, former President Trump took office and the U.S. continued delivering taxpayer funds to the agency before his administration slashed funding for UNWRA. Some $400 million was given to UNRWA through 2017 and 2018, but following the Trump administration’s suspension of funds, nothing more was given during the latter half of his tenure.

Upon taking office in January 2021, President Biden resumed giving funds to UNRWA. To date, the Biden administration has sent more than $1 billion in taxpayer funds to the agency.

Since October, the Biden administration has sent about $121 million in taxpayer funds to UNRWA. A remaining $300,000 in appropriated funds for this fiscal year was supposed to be delivered to the agency in the next few weeks. However, the U.S. froze those funds over allegations that some UNRWA members participated in the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, according to State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.

“That funding has been suspended,” Miller told reporters at the State Department daily press briefing.

Biden officials say the funds provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people, while critics say the group is “effectively a branch of Hamas.”

One such critic, Richard Goldberg, a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday and claimed UNRWA is a “horror show” that has been “co-produced by the United States taxpayer.”

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